Home : Gunfighters :

The Gunfighters

Nate Champion (first from left) is destined to meet a brutal end in the Johnson County War of 1892.

Andy Blevins

Blevins was a member of a ranching family from Texas who moved to Pleasant Valley, Arizona, and became involved in the local range war. Reported to have been a rustler and killer in Texas, Andy "Cooper" (an often-used alias) hired out his gun to the cattlemen's side. Andy killed two men, including the leader of the sheepherder's faction, but was himself shot to death two days later by Perry Owens, who also gunned down two of Andy's brothers and his brother-in-law.

Charlie Bowdre

A close cohort of Billy the Kid, Bowdre aligned with the "Regulators" in the Lincoln County War, participating in the assassination of Frank Baker, Billy Morton, and William McCloskey. A few weeks later he fired the shot which killed Buckshot Roberts at Blazer's Mill, and in July, 1878, he played a relatively minor role in the climactic shootout in Lincoln. He then became briefly involved with the Kid's band of rustlers and was inaccurately accused of the murder of Indian agency clerk Morris Bernstein.

But by this time Bowdre had married a native New Mexican and had begun trying to mend his fences. He became foreman of a ranch in the vicinity of Fort Sumner and soon acquired part ownership. A few weeks before his death he met with Pat Garrett to discuss the possibility of exoneration. But a federal warrant still demanded his arrest, and he rejoined the Kid and a handful of other fugitives, leaving his wife in Fort Sumner.

After nightfall on December 19 the half-dozen outlaws rode into Fort Sumner for a brief vacation, but they were jumped by Pat Garrett and a posse. Tom O'Folliard was killed, and so was Dave Rudabaugh's horse, but Rudabaugh vaulted onto Billy Wilson's mount, and the five fugitives escaped safely. They secured a horse for Rudabaugh and secluded themselves in a rock house near Stinking Springs, where Bowdre was killed by the posse on December 23. Bowdre was buried beside O'Folliard at Fort Sumner, and a few months later the two were joined by the remains of the Kid.

William Milton Breakenridge

Reared in Wisconsin, Billy Breakenridge quit school at fourteen to sell newspapers in Milwaukee. Two years later he ran away from home and enlisted as a teamster with the U.S. Army during the Civil War. Soon he went West, working at a variety of jobs in Denver, including service as a page boy for the Colorado legislature. In 1864 he joined Chivington's Third Colorado Cavalry and participated in the savage Sand Creek Massacre. After the war he worked as a train brakeman, but by 1867 he was employed as a storekeeper in Sidney, Nebraska.

He was soon wandering again, and in 1878 he turned up in Phoenix as a deputy sheriff. The next year he was attracted to booming Tombstone, where he hauled lumber for a time before again securing an appointment as a deputy sheriff. In 1883 he went into a ranch partnership, but he soon sold out and pinned on a deputy U.S. marshal's badge.

In 1888 Breakenridge was elected surveyor of Maricopa County, and later he became special officer for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Headquartered in Tucson, he performed detective and guard work for the railroad until his retirement at the age of seventy-two. In 1928 he published his reminiscences in Helldorado, and he basked in the book's publicity until his death three years later in Tucson.

Richard M. Brewer

Dick Brewer moved with his family in 1860 to a farm in Wisconsin. At the age of eighteen he left home and went West, arriving in Lincoln County in 1870. He established a farm, and his interest in horse breeding brought him in close contact with a neighbor, Englishman John Tunstall. He became foreman of Tunstall's ranch, and when his employer was murdered he led the so-called Regulators in revenge until he was himself killed.

Jack L. Bridges

Born either in Maine or, to quote the U.S. census of 1870, "at sea," Bridges was a peace officer for fifteen years in Kansas. A deputy U.S. marshal by 1869, Bridges lived for a time in Hays City, then moved to Wichita. There he was badly wounded in a shootout, and he returned to Maine to recuperate. Soon he resumed his career in Kansas, and about that time acquired a wife.

Bridges spent some time in Colorado, but in 1882 he was appointed city marshal of Dodge, and the next year he was aligned against Luke Short in the "Dodge City War." During his years as a peace officer he was involved in several minor incidents featuring gunplay, generally while making arrests. In 1884 he was replaced as marshal of Dodge by Bill Tilghman, and thereafter he faded into obscurity.

William L. Brooks ("Buffalo Bill," "Bully")

Brooks's origin was hazy, but he was reputed to have engaged in fatal shootouts during his obscure past. He affected shoulder-length hair and almost always carried a Winchester. He became a stagecoach driver on the Newton-Wichita route, and when Newton was organized as a third-class city in 1872, he was elected the first city marshal.

Later in the year, after being shot up in a Newton gunfight, Brooks moved to Ellsworth and served briefly as a policeman. Soon he was in Dodge City, where he hunted buffalo and engaged in three gunfights before leaving the vicinity. By 1874 Brooks evidently turned to stealing mules and horses, for a gang of thieves, including W. L. Brooks, was captured and lynched in July in southern Kansas. Brooks had moved to the Caldwell area with his wife, who was present when he was lynched.

Charles Bryant ("Black Faced Charlie")

During a close-range shooting scrape in his youth, Bryant was blasted in the face by grains of black powder from a pointblank pistol shot which creased his cheek. The permanent disfigurement which resulted gave him his nickname. In 1891 he joined the Dalton gang of train robbers, and during a shootout with a posse he crowed, "Me, I want to get killed in one hell-firin' minute of action." He little realized how quickly his wish would be granted. Deputy U.S. Marshal Ed Short arrested him in a Hennessey, Oklahoma, hotel room, bedridden from illness. Short loaded him on a train for Wichita, Kansas, which was the nearest federal court district. But en route Bryant tried to escape, and in the process he and Short shot each other to death.

Reuben Houston Burrows

Born in Alabama, Rube Burrows married and moved his small family to Texas in the 1870's. He became a member of the Masonic Lodge and was noted as a cracker-barrel philosopher. For fourteen years he lived quietly while working for the railroad, but in the late 1880's he became the leader of an outlaw band. His wife and two children returned to Alabama, while Rube, his brother Jim, and four other hard cases began holding up trains. Jim was captured in 1888, but Rube continued to stage train robberies until he was killed a year later.

Thomas Carson

A nephew of Kit Carson, Tom rated several notches lower as a frontiersman. His chief notoriety came as a peace officer, but he was frequently in trouble with city officials where he worked. Appointed to Abilene's police force in June, 1871, less than aweek later he received a severe reprimand. Later that summer Carson was employed on the police force of booming Newton, arriving about the time of the bloody "Newton General Massacre."

Still later in the same year Carson was rehired in Abilene, but following an unprovoked shooting scrape he was quickly fired. Several weeks afterward he shot a fellow former policeman from Abilene, but he broke out of jail before he could be tried.

Lon Chambers

A Texan, Chambers wore a badge in the Panhandle, then drifted into New Mexico during the manhunt for Billy the Kid. Chambers was with Pat Garrett's posse when they ambushed the Kid in Fort Sumner, resulting in the death of Tom O'Folliard. A few days later the posse caught the Kid and his four surviving cohorts in an isolated rock house. They killed Charlie Bowdre and forced the rest to surrender. Within a year or two, however, Chambers decided that the rewards of carrying a gun for the law were not commensurate with the risks. Following a train robbery in Kansas, he won acquittal and disappeared from notoriety.

Nathan D. Champion

Nate Champion was born near Round Rock, Texas, into a large and respected family. Champion became a cowboy, and after accompanying a herd up the Goodnight-Loving Trail in 1881, he and his twin brother, Dudley, decided to stay in Wyoming. The Champion brothers became top hands on several Wyoming ranches and began to side with Johnson County homesteaders and small ranchers in the growing feud with wealthy cattle barons of the area.

Like most cowboys, Nate occasionally appropriated stray cattle for his own use, and the big ranchers began to call him "King of the Rustlers." In the fall of 1891 Nate fought off a personal attack, but a few months later he was gunned down after a courageous fight against more than fifty "Regulators." Two weeks later his martyred remains were retrieved and buried at Buffalo. In May, 1893, Dudley was murdered by Mike Shonsey, a range detective who had feuded with Nate.

Will Christian ("Black Jack," "202")

Will and Bob Christian were Oklahoma outlaws who broke jail in 1895 after a killing and after two months of thievery headed west. They passed through New Mexico and stopped in Arizona's Sulphur Springs Valley, where Will, using the alias Ed Williams, broke horses and mules and later punched cows. His friends nicknamed him "202" because of his weight and also called the swarthy cowboy "Black Jack."

Soon Will returned to robbery, and his gang, the "High Fives," plundered stagecoaches, trains, and banks, throughout 1896 and 1897. There was a series of battles and escapes from lawmen, and Will was chased down and killed by Deputy U.S. Marshal Fred Higgins.

Jim Cummings Clark

Born in Missouri, Clark was christened Jim Cummings, but his name soon was changed when his widowed mother married a man named Clark. At the age of seventeen Clark stole a mule from his stepfather and fled to San Antonio, where he and a friend sold the animal, stole fourteen hundred dollars from a rancher, and then returned to Missouri.

Clark met William Quantrill, and when the Civil War broke out, he became one of the guerrilla leader's most trusted lieutenants. After the war he again turned to thievery for a time before moving to Leadville in the 1870's. There he fought a champion prizefighter for a one-hundred-dollar fee, flirted with outlawry again, and left for Telluride in 1887.

Clark worked at digging a pipeline into town, then secured an appointment as city marshal. He enforced the law by clubbing ruffians with his fists, and he was widely rumored to have continued his criminal activities from time to time. He finally was fired and promptly began muttering threats to kill members of the city council for fifteen cents, or two for a quarter. Clark remained in Telluride and was shot to death there in 1895.

Emmanuel Clements ("Mannen")

Mannen and his brothers Gyp, Jim, and Joe were brought up on a cattle ranch south of Smiley, Texas. In 1871 Mannen's younger cousin, fugitive John Wesley Hardin, came to stay on the Clements ranch. Hardin went up the Chisholm trail with a Clements herd and later assisted the Clements boys in the notorious Sutton-Taylor feud. Mannen and his brothers were involved in several ambushes and sieges on the side of the Taylors, who were their relatives by marriage.

In October, 1872, Mannen helped Hardin to escape from jail by slipping him a file, then pulling him between the jagged bars by lariat. Throughout the 1870's Clements and his brothers were active in driving herds to the Kansas railheads, and Mannen ran spreads in San Saba and McCulloch counties. In 1877 Clements found himself in jail in Austin, along with Hardin, Bill Taylor, John Ringo, and members of the Sam Bass gang.

By 1880 Clements was suspected of rustling, and he had accumulated vast horse and cattle herds on his McCulloch County ranch. In 1887 he ran for sheriff of newly formed Runnels County, and the heated campaign climaxed with his death in a saloon fight.

Emmanuel Clements Jr. ("Mannie")

Mannie Clements was the son of violence-prone South Texas rancher Mannen Clements, and he followed his father's aggressive example. Clements drifted to El Paso in 1894, and for the next fourteen years he wore a badge as a deputy constable, constable, and deputy sheriff. During the 1890's he was united in El Paso with his cousin John Wesley Hardin, just released from prison, and with his murderous brother-in-law Killin' Jim Miller. In 1908 Clements was indicted for armed robbery, and even though he was acquitted (after dire warnings against any juror who dared vote against him), his career as a law officer was ruined. He turned increasingly to drink, and soon he was killed - ironically enough, in an El Paso saloon.

Frank Coe

As a young bachelor Coe drifted to Lincoln County, New Mexico, where he found employment with several relatives as a farmer and ranch hand. Frank and his cousin George, who regularly served together as the fiddlers at local dances, jointly invested in the county's first thresher. But just as their financial situation was improving, the Lincoln County War broke out, and both cousins found themselves fighting with the McSween faction.

When the shooting subsided, the Coes moved to San Juan County, then left New Mexico completely. In 1884 the Coes returned to Lincoln County, and Frank and his wife of three years settled on a ranch which in 1873 had been leased by the murderous Horrell brothers from Lampasas, Texas. Coe lived on this ranch until his death in 1931; he was survived by six children and his wife of fifty years.

George Washington Coe

The son of a Civil War veteran who had migrated to a Missouri homestead, George Coe in 1874 went to Fort Stanton, New Mexico, to work on the ranch of a cousin. By 1878 Coe had leased his own spread in Lincoln County, but the area was on the verge of all-out war, and Coe soon found himself arrested unjustly by Sherif William Brady. While he was in custody he was subjected to physical torture, and upon his release he bitterly determined to seek revenge. In the subsequent Lincoln County War he fought with the Regulators, figuring prominently in the gunfight with Buckshot Roberts and in assorted other shooting scrapes.

When the hostilities died down, Coe moved with his relatives to San Juan County, where he had further trouble with outlaws and where he acquired a wife. Eventually Coe obtained amnesty from Governor Lew Wallace, and, after brief sojourns in Nebraska and Colorado, in 1884 he returned to Lincoln County to make his permanent home. He homesteaded what became known as the Golden Glow Ranch and also operated a store there. Coe became a staunch family man, and, following a conversion to Christianity, he hung up his guns for the rest of his long life.

Philip Houston Coe

A border-town gambler, Coe became friendly with members of the Second Texas Mounted Rifles when that regiment was stationed in the Rio Grande Valley in 1862. The sixfoot-four-Inch Coe was so popular that the company (in which Ben Thompson served) elected him lieutenant. When regimental officials learned of this, Coe was directed to enlist in the army through proper channels or stop acting as an officer. When Coe ignored those orders, he was conscripted, although he chose to flee to Mexico rather than serve under such conditions.

After the Civil War, Coe and Tom Bowles opened a saloon in Austin and installed Ben Thompson as a house gambler. In 1871 Coe drifted to Abilene, Kansas, and, pooling resources with Ben Thompson, opened the Bull's Head Saloon. Decorated with an obscene sign, the Bull's Head was expensively equipped and located so that it was the first saloon cowboys encountered upon entering the booming cowtown. This prosperous partnership was broken up that summer, however, when Thompson and his family were severely injured in a buggy mishap and returned to Texas.

Coe sold his interest in the saloon, but continued to gamble there. At this point he came into conflict with City Marshal Wild Bill Hickok, with whom he had previously clashed. The town council had ordered Hickok to see that the sign above the Bull's Head was altered, but when Coe and Thompson resisted, Hickok sent painters up to daub over the offensive portion of the bull's anatomy. But when the paint dried, the distinctive part of the bull still was sharply outlined, and Hickok had earned the bitter enmity of Coe. Then Coe acquired a mistress - a girl who earlier had caught Hickok's fancy. The marshal's anger was so great, according to some versions, that a fist fight broke out between the two, and when Hickok was floored, he threatened Coe's life.

The feud came to a head on October 5, when Hickok fatally wounded Coe in an infamous gunfight. A friend of Coe's, Bud Cotton, took the body to Texas, and at one point overtook Ben Thompson and his family. Thompson, previously unaware of the shooting, allegedly wept over the casket.

Chunk Colbert

Colbert established a reputation as a gunman during the early 1870's, reputedly killing seven men in West Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. Two of these fights are on record, as well as his last shooting scrape. In 1874 he ran afoul of Clay Allison, and during the subsequent gunfight Colbert was shot to death.

James Cole

James Cole, a marshal and peace officer assigned to the Indian Territories during the 1880s, often dispensed frontier justice from the point of his gun. He and Deputy Marshal Frank Dalton were once sent to the Cherokee reservation to capture suspected horse thief Dave Smith. They tracked him to his camp near the Arkansas River, where he was joined by his brother-in-law Lee Dixon, fellow horse thief William Towerly, and Dixon's wife.

The gang spotted Cole first, and opened fire. Dalton was shot through the chest, fell to the ground, and was finished off by Towerly, who emptied his Winchester into the deputy. Cole was shot in his side by Smith, but he refused to retreat. Cole killed Dixon's wife and Smith, and wounded Dixon. Towerly managed to escape, but only temporarily. He was soon killed in a shootout. Cole brought Dixon back to Fort Smith, where he died of his wounds.

more »

---

top of page

back a page